


Negatives

by LookingForShadows



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2286833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForShadows/pseuds/LookingForShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Negative (noun): the light and dark parts roughly in inverse relation to the original photograph; of a lens: wherein light rays diverge and form an inverted image.</i>
</p>
<p>Darkened, in-between scenes from the ten Gryffindors of the incoming class of 1991.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lavender Brown

**Author's Note:**

> Many years ago, a friend of mine dared me to write a fanfiction about all ten Gryffindors in Harry's year based on a sheet of emotions we had been given in a creative writing class. There were twenty-five emotions listed on the sheet for us to practice writing about - two for each character.
> 
> Since 2006, when I first wrote these, the stories have evolved quite a bit. And now, finally complete, here are the backlit, unseen scenes of Gryffindor's incoming class of 1991.

Prompt:  **WTF?!** ,  _Goblet of Fire_

Lavender has been dancing all night. Her robes have never felt better (and tighter from the rich food), her shoes have never looked more amazing (because everyone just knows that dancing for hours in stilettos feels painful), and she kissed Seamus (and then he half-abandoned her – although, to be fair, he came back and walked her up to the common room).

She walks into the common room gleefully and stops dead at the gossip.

Ron and Hermione are not talking to each other. More precisely, Ron and Hermione have had a fight.

The trio’s been broken.

Lavender, of course, now has a choice to make. She can go to Ron, or she could talk to Hermione, and therefore get in the brunette’s good graces.

She walks up the girls’ staircase slowly, carefully, considering each and every word. When she pushes open the door to her dormitory, Hermione has drawn her curtains and sniffling noises are floating from the bed. Instead of chatting with the others, Lavender pushes back Hermione’s curtains gently and says, “Are you all right?”

* * *

 

Prompt:  **Confident** ,  _Half Blood Prince_

“Of course I can get him,” she boasts as she drags Parvati by the hand towards the Quidditch pitch. Today is tryouts for the Gryffindor team, and although Parvati is looking forward to Potter and Thomas and the other boys looking very hot and sweaty and sexy, she doesn’t like Lavender’s makeup overload or low-cut robes.

“But what about Hermione –?” Parvati tries to add lamely.

“Bloody Granger can go to hell,” Lavender growls. The mood changes as she whirls her best friend around. “Ron will be my boyfriend. No problem.”

Parvati nods, bites her lip, and decides to warn Hermione Granger about Lavender’s addiction to Ron.


	2. Seamus Finnigan

Prompt:  **Hollow** ,  _Half-Blood Prince_

Nora is killed on a Sunday; the news arrives that night. Seamus sits outside the Gryffindor common room on a bench and although the first-years stare at him, he cries like a small child.

“Hey.” A hand claps him on the back. “You’ll be all right, mate?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, because the tears have dried away, and all he can think about is his sister splayed across the floor of her flat, dead, unmoving, her sandy hair in a fan around her face... “God.”

Dean nods and says, “I’ll be inside if you need me.”

Seamus inclines his head a little.

It can’t be more than a few minutes before something is next to him, and long red hair hangs from a bent face and almost scrapes his hand. Ginny Weasley pats his arm and something wet – a tear, Seamus realizes – falls from her eye onto his fingers. She bats it away angrily.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Nora was like an older sister to me, too.”

* * *

 

Prompt:  **Fierce** ,  _Deathly Hallows_

They come in the middle of the day. Seamus is alone in the house, his mam at work and his dad visiting Auntie Kate in Cork.

They knock on the door and act like Muggles. But Seamus knows better, because he recognizes the maniacal glint in Bellatrix Lestrange’s eyes.

“I’ll kill you like I killed your uncle, boy,” she says. “I’ll kill you like I killed your sister.”

Seamus dodges her spell, Apparates, and stands in Muggle Dublin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always thought it was odd that we don't often hear of siblings within Wizarding families, other than the Weasleys. I've given Seamus a sister, several years older, named Nora.


	3. Hermione Granger

Prompt: **Sad** , _Sorcerer's Stone_

Everything is wrong, just everything. No one will talk to her, she is alone just like she was at her old school, and she misses Mum and Dad.

Footsteps sound in her part of the library, an alcove in the back, empty save for her. “Are you all right?”

Hermione looks up to a Ravenclaw prefect with beautifully curled hair down her back. _Lucky._ She shakes her head, then backtracks and nods.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?”

“I will be,” Hermione says, even though she felt anything but, and manages to force a small smile. The girl walks away.

* * *

 

Prompt: **Serious** , _Order of the Phoenix_

“Good to see you today, Miss Granger,” Professor McGonagall says in her brisk, no-nonsense tone. Hermione returns the pleasantries.

“Well, it’s good to see you have direction with your life,” McGonagall says with great approval and a little nod.

_Anything but,_ Hermione thinks in her lack of confidence.

“Do you know what you’d like to do with your life, Hermione?”

Hermione thinks for a minute, then reveals the small, white, straight teeth set in her face. “What are my options?”

Professor McGonagall returns the smile in a rare moment. “Everything.”

 


	4. Neville Longbottom

Prompt: **Shocked** , _Order of the Phoenix_

“Hello, Neville.”

Neville turns around, practically tripping over his own two feet and almost knocking the _Mimbulus Mimbletonia_ over. Hannah Abbott stands in the back of the greenhouse, mechanically plaiting her blond hair down her shoulder. Her cheeks look rather pink, Neville thinks, but can’t fathom why. “Hello, Hannah. You looking for someone?”

“My book, if you can call that a someone,” she says with a light laugh that makes Neville’s stomach do a flip. “What’re you doing?”

“Testing the limits of the plant,” Neville says with a proud parent’s smile. “It’s brilliant.”

She moves forward a little. “Can I look?”

Neville nods, and she moves forwards, still smiling shyly, and kisses him. He blinks.

“You’re awfully brilliant yourself, Neville,” she says, and slips out of the greenhouse.

* * *

 

Prompt:  **Triumph** ,  _Deathly Hallows_

“Longbottom!”

Neville turns around and sees Horace Slughorn. “I’m not in Potions, professor.”

“Oh, I know, m’boy,” he says jovially. “But I knew Alice and Frank. Thought you might come round for tea?”

Neville hesitates. He and Luna and Ginny were supposed to make more DA plans tonight – they need to terrorize the Carrows as much as possible – but maybe that can wait. “Yeah, that's fine.”

Horace envelops Neville into a large hug. He is shocked until Professor Slughorn slips a letter into Neville’s pocket and whispers, “From Augusta,” as he pulls back.

Neville nods and reads it as soon as he gets to the Room of Requirement.

_Dear Neville,_

_You are truly your parents’ son..._


	5. Lily Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going off a rather old essay on characters from Harry's year over on the Sugar Quill, I made up personalities for the missing characters from Harry's year long ago. Rather than the fey, dreamy girl that ended up being Luna Lovegood, my Lily Moon is stubborn and sharp as a tack. I've created a long and storied history for her, but this is a small snippet of what she has become to me.

Prompt:  **Disgusted** ,  _Prisoner of Azkaban_

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Lily glares at her best friend but melts into wails. “I just don’t get it! Herbology’s never going to make sense!”

“And neither will blokes,” Soap mutters. “Here, let me help.”

Lily glances around the greenhouse. “Let me try first.”

Soap nods and wisely keeps her mouth shut. 

When Lily’s first, second, and third attempts at repotting the Flowering Humbug Orchid go awry, she pulls off her gloves. “I’m useless.”

Risking decapitation, Soap agrees. “Just a bit, yeah.”

Lily laughs, but keeps glaring at the plant.

* * *

 

Prompt:  **Bereft** ,  _Half-Blood Prince_

When Lily’s dad died, she was twelve and she missed him. She didn’t quite get death.

When her best friend Soap died the winter of sixth year, she ran the streets of Dublin for miles, trying to forget and fade into the distance.

But she can’t forget now, and she understands that her precious older brother, Michael, who smelt of fresh air and pine needles in the middle of a city, lies crumpled on the floor of their second-storey flat.

“Hey,” a voice says by her ear and Anthony Goldstein gives her a sad smile. “Sorry about your brother.”

Lily nods numbly and heads off with her little sister Sara towards McGonagall’s office to Floo home.


	6. Parvati Patil

Prompt:  **Tired** ,  _Order of the Phoenix_

“Please,” Parvati says when footsteps approach her, “just go.”

She has had a long day, and, quite honestly? The last thing she wants to do is talk to anyone, except perhaps her mum.

“You’re in a mood today,” says Dean as he sits down next to her on the steps and places a hand against her forehead. “Bloody hell, Pav, you’re burning up.”

Parvati scowls. “I don’t know if that’s meant well or not.”

Dean grins. “That’s the beauty of it.”

They sit in the Room of Requirement. It is the Sunday before they are set to go home. Harry has fought his battle, and Voldemort is at the height of power unseen for many years.

Parvati leans her head on Dean’s rather comfortable shoulder and closes her eyes, trying to block the future for one moment more. Dean tightens the arm wrapped around her.

They stay like that for a while.

* * *

 

Prompt:  **Pleased** ,  _Half-Blood Prince_

“Mum!”

Mrs. Patil sticks her head out the door to see her two daughters flying to the door and inside the kitchen. “Girls! Calm down. What is it?”

“O.W.L. results,” Padma says in a shaky whisper and moves towards the stairs. “Tell you later, Pav.”

Parvati rolls her eyes when the two of them hear Padma’s door slam shut. “Melodramatic.”

“Parvati, that’s your sister,” Mrs. Patil admonishes and sits at the worn table with a cup of tea. “What did you get?”

“Three E’s, three A’s, and an O in Charms,” she boasts, and then asks with an anxious face, “Healer material, do you think? Like Dad?”

Mrs. Patil tilts her daughter’s face upwards. “Not quite yet, but keep up the hard work and then – ”

“And then what?” Parvati asks eagerly.

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Patil says with a smile, “then you’ll be a Healer.” She pauses. “Yes, a Healer who would have been quite worthy of your father’s praise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Half-Blood Prince has the Patil parents coming to Hogwarts at the end of the book, but, well. Harry was never the sharpest. In my personal headcanon, it's their mother and their uncle.


	7. Harry Potter

Prompt: **Incredulous** , _Order of the Phoenix_

“Wait, you’re here?”

Harry’s head jerked back a little reflexively as Seamus entered the Room of Requirement with Dean Thomas. Seamus narrowed his eyes and raked a hand through his sandy hair. “Yeah, Potter, you got a problem with that?”

“Er, no.” Harry shrunk a little bit back.

“Listen, mate,” Seamus said, stepping in front of Dean to Harry. The taller boy reached out a hand to lie on the other boy’s pale skin, who pushed it off. “Lay off, Dean. Potter, I didn’t believe you, yeah. But that’s over an’ done with. I – I read that interview in _The_ _Quibbler_ , an' I believe you.”

Harry grinned and the two dorm-mates shook hands. “Welcome to the DA, Seamus.”

Seamus nodded. “Much thanks.”

* * *

 

Prompt: **Blank** , _Half-Blood Prince_

She dipped down, red mane flying behind her in a hastily tied, messy ponytail, and slams the Quaffle towards the goal. Montague lunges, trying to block the shot – his fingers snag one of its finger holes –

And then, miraculously, it slips and falls through the goal.

Harry stares as she turns victoriously, red-orange hair glowing, and gives a competitive grin to her brother at the other goal.

Ginny snaps her head upwards, though, to where Harry’s eyes linger on her. She rolls her eyes and calls, “Get back to Snitch-searching, will you?”

Harry laughs and scans the skies for the tiny golden ball. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he is still watching her.

 


	8. Sophie Roper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like with Lily Moon, I've long had my own ideas for Sophie Roper (whom I have chosen to call Soap, a slightly ditzy and very unusual nickname). I hope you like the brilliant, vivacious, somewhat scheming girl I've long clung to.

Prompt: **Flirty** , _Goblet of Fire_

“He’s fit,” she whispers to her best friend. Lily rolls her eyes.

“He’s a Slytherin, Soap. Thought you could do better’n that.” 

“So?” Soap says, her dark hair swinging in an arc. She winks and walks off, feeling overconfident in stilettos and alluring robes.

Theodore Nott is brooding in an isolated corner of the Great Hall. His gaze lingers on Tracey Davis and Soap’s heart drops to the bottom of her three inch heels.

Still, she swings forward next to him. “Hello. Want to dance?”

He turns toward her and she turns on the charming smile. “You’re that girl in my Potions class, yeah?”

“There’s more than one girl, you know,” she retorts; he gives a short laugh and finally looks her way.

“Why not?” he asks, and she genuinely smiles, glad to have the boy she wants for one night.

* * *

 

Prompt: **Irritated** ,  _Goblet of Fire_

“So! So! Soap! SOPHIE!”

Sophie Catherine Roper, called Soap because she couldn’t pronounce her own name as a child, grinds her teeth and turns around on one heel. A small boy of no more than eleven stands before her, his hair falling in straight pieces around a narrow face.

“What do you want, Chris?”

Christopher, her little brother, gives a little pout. “Nothing, dearest sister mine.”

Soap narrows her eyes and shifts her books to the other hip. “You need something.”

Christopher shakes his head, but that slowly turns to a nod under his older sister’s cool gaze. “Okay, McGonagall put me in detention and I want out.”

Soap scowled: couldn’t Christopher have not gotten in detention in the first place?

Instead, like any good sibling, she grabs Christopher’s ear and drags him down the corridor.


	9. Dean Thomas

Prompt: **Rage** , _Half-Blood Prince_

“It’s not fair.”

Seamus shrugged. “Eh, nothing is ever fair.”

Dean punched the first thing that connected with his hand – it happened to be a stone gargoyle – and winced. “I thought she liked me!” All of the words seemed to burst out of him at once. “She said she loved me, Ginny did, and then she went off and kissed that bastard!”

“You two were broken up.”

Dean ignored the flippant remark. “No girl, no life, and in the middle of the war!”

Seamus shrugged and backed down the hallway. “Ask Parvati out!” he yelled.

Dean paced for a few seconds, hand running through his hair, and stopped short. “Parvati,” he said. “Hmm....”

* * *

Prompt: **Ill** , _Dealthy Hallows_

“Hey, mate, you need to wake up. I’ve got medicine,” a mellow voice said quietly.

Dean opened an eye slowly in an agonizing process. “All right, Ted?”

“More like if you’re all right,” Ted said with a grin. “You’ve been sick for a week. I’ve a letter from your mum.” There was a proud note in his voice as he said, “Dirk Cresswell intercepted the owl on its way to Hogwarts.”

Dean tried to nod, but his head felt heavy and his throat rasped as he said, “How are Mum and Will? And my sisters?”

“They’re doing all right,” Ted said. “Your mum’s worried, though, I think. We read the letter,” he added apologetically. “In case there was bad news.”

“What day is it?” Dean whispered as Ted spooned some medicine into his mouth.

He succumbed to sleep as Ted whispered, “Happy Christmas, Dean.”


	10. Ron Weasley

Prompt:  **Silly** ,  _Sorcerer's Stone_

The snow, Ron mused as he looked out the library window, was the perfect setting for a snowball fight. It was the day before winter break – the day before Hermione was set to leave – and he was determined to have fun.

“Okay, you two,” he said crossly, marching back to their library table laden with books, “enough about Nicholas Flamel. There’s _snow_ outside!”

“Ron, I think we’ve realized that –”

“But the research –”

Ron grinned cross-eyed and waved his wand as he’d seen the twins doing yesterday; an oversized Father Christmas hat plopped on his head. Hermione and Harry both gave hearty laughs.

“Well, hurry up!” said Ron, and ran out of the library towards the great outdoors. “What are you waiting for?”

* * *

Prompt:  **Drunk** ,  _Half-Blood Prince_

Two weeks after his birthday, Ron snitched a bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky from Trelawney’s office and dragged Harry down to the Quidditch locker rooms to get properly drunk.

“Happy birthday to me,” Ron mumbled for the seventh time, “I’m a hundred ‘n’ three...”

“You’re sloshed,” Harry said, and giggled.

“So’re you.” He sighed. “I fucked things up with Hermy.”

“Since when does she let you call ‘er _Hermy_?”

“She doesn’t,” Ron admitted with another deep sigh. “Who are you in love with?”

“Your little sister,” Harry said, and then – “shit, I said that, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Ron said. “You’re sloshed, and so’m I!”

Neither Gryffindor remembered it in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the last of the ten. Thank you so much for reading, everyone!


End file.
